Tag Archives: #LexingtonHeraldLeader

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The Lexington Herald-Leader and photos of accused criminals They withhold mugshots of convicted felons, but publish those of men acquitted of crimes.

We have previously reported on the Lexington Herald-Leader and its adherence to the McClatchy Mugshot Policy of not publishing photos of criminals booked, because it might harm them unfairly at some future point if they are acquitted. Thus, there were no mugshots accompanying this article:

    Officer saw two cars shooting at each other near Versailles Road. Pursuit ends in arrests.

    By Christopher Leach | September 27, 2021 | 11:56 AM EDT

    William Rutherford, Fayette County Detention Center, September 27, 2021, 2:17:09 AM

    Two adult males, one of which is an 18-year-old, are behind bars after allegedly getting into a shootout with another vehicle near Versailles Road and Alexandria Drive, police say.

    William Rutherford, 18, and Bryan Anicasio-Miranda, 20, were occupants of one of the vehicles involved according to police. They have both been charged with possession of a stolen firearm and possession of marijuana, per jail records.

    Police also said there were three juveniles in Rutherford’s vehicle that have been charged as well.

    According to police, an officer witnessed two cars that appeared to be shooting at one another near Versailles Road and Alexandria Drive late Sunday night. The officer was able to get behind Rutherford’s vehicle but Rutherford fled, according to the arrest citation.

    Lexington police Sgt. Daniel Burnett was unsure how long the ensuing pursuit lasted but said it ended with Rutherford pulling over. Court documents show that the officer recovered a stolen firearm, 35 grams of marijuana and beer inside Rutherford’s vehicle.

    Along with the stolen firearm and marijuana charges, Rutherford has also been charged with first degree fleeing or evading police, possession of an open alcohol beverage container in a motor vehicle and having no operator’s license and registration plates, per jail records.

There’s more at the original. The article did not, of course, include young Mr Rutherford’s mugshot, to which the reporter, Christopher Leach,[1]Chris Leach is a breaking news reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the newspaper in September 2021 after previously working with the Anderson News and the Cats Pause. Chris graduated … Continue reading had access, given that he noted that he checked Fayette County Detention Center records. Interestingly, the jail website had two mugshots of Mr Rutherford, a previous one dated April 6, 2021. Looks like he might not be the nicest guy around.

Bryan Anicasio-Miranda, Fayette County Detention Center, September 27, 2021, 3:08:22 AM.

That, of course, is second to Mr Anicasio-Miranda, who had three mugshots, one each in June and August of 2020 as well as the current one. One of his charges is possession of firearm by a convicted felon, so he’s definitely a bad guy. What my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal didn’t publish his mugshot either, despite him being a previously convicted felon.

However, despite the McClatchy Mugshot Policy stating that “The permanence of the internet can mean those arrested but not convicted of a crime have the photograph attached to their names forever,” the paper has been willing to publish the photo of a former University of Kentucky basketball player in a story noting that he was just acquitted of the charges against him:

    Federal jury acquits former Kentucky basketball star of tax crime charges

    By Jeremy Chisenhall | Updated: September 24, 2021 | 2:26 PM

    A federal jury on Thursday acquitted former University of Kentucky and NBA basketball player Randolph Morris of several tax crimes.

    Morris was charged with three counts of wire fraud and eight counts of making false statements after he failed to report millions of dollars of foreign income while he played professional basketball in China from 2010 to 2017. Morris didn’t deny that he left the income off his taxes, but a jury ultimately ruled he didn’t intentionally defraud the United States.

    “This is a huge relief for his family,” said Whitney True Lawson, one of Morris’ attorneys. “We’re happy with this outcome. We think it was the right outcome.”

    Morris said he left the income off his taxes because he didn’t understand his tax responsibilities. The team Morris played for at the time, the Beijing Ducks, had a provision in Morris’ contract that stated his income was “net of tax.” The team was responsible for paying taxes on Morris’ behalf to the Chinese government, according to the contract.

    But the team was not paying taxes to the U.S. government.

There’s more at the original.

Mr Morris, being a former UK player, has had his photo in the Herald-Leader dozens, if not hundreds, of times. UK basketball is wildly popular in the Bluegrass State, and, let’s be honest about things, the only reason for some people to pay for subscriptions to the paper. But the very reason that the McClatchy policy stated for not having mugshots published, a person charged with a crime but not convicted, would absolutely apply to Mr Morris.

The Herald-Leader also had a story about charges being dropped against six UK football players, and if the paper didn’t print their photos, the article linked to all of the players individual biography pages, which did have photos. The article noting that a grand jury had declined to indict the players included a description of the events which led up to prosecutors wanting to file charges in the first place, to taint the players’ reputations. Kind of a far cry from the policy designed to protect the reputations of those accused of crimes but not convicted.

Of course, the story of a federal trial over “three counts of wire fraud and eight counts of making false statements” would probably not have made the paper at all were the accused not a UK basketball player or some other person of local note. The paper has very limited resources, and limited staffing as well.

The Herald-Leader is wracked with hypocrisy when following the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, but I’ve grown to expect nothing else from them.

References

References
↑1 Chris Leach is a breaking news reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the newspaper in September 2021 after previously working with the Anderson News and the Cats Pause. Chris graduated from UK in December 2018.
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Mugshot and photo hypocrisy from the Lexington Herald-Leader

We noted on Sunday that the Lexington Herald-Leader declined to post the mugshot of Brent Dyer Kelty, a man previously convicted of “several prior felonies in Fayette County since 2010,” in their story about him being indicted for the murder of an infant. In that, the newspaper followed the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, despite the fact that Mr Kelty, even if acquitted of murder, is still a multiply convicted felon.

The McClatchy policy is due to the possibility that an accused person might not ever be convicted, and thus having his mugshot published could harm him later in life. Of course, someone’s name is far more easily searchable, and just printing the suspect’s name can have far wider implications. For instance, prospective employers who do their due diligence on an applicant, will be searching for his name, not his photo.

But it seems that the Herald-Leader has no compunctions about printing the photo of someone accused of, and convicted of, a simple misdemeanor:

    Woman who attended University of Kentucky pleads guilty in U.S. Capitol riot case

    By Beth Musgrave | August 30, 2021 | 1:21 PM EDT

    Gracyn Dawn Courtright, a University of Kentucky student, faces charges linked to the Capitol riot on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2020. This photo was included in a criminal complaint filed against Courtright and allegedly shows her holding the “members only” sign. PHOTO VIA FBI.

    A woman from West Virginia who attended the University of Kentucky pleaded guilty Monday to charges related to entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.

    In federal court in Washington D.C., Gracyn Dawn Courtright pleaded guilty to a charge of entering and remaining in a restricted area, according to federal court records. She had faced more charges.

    Courtright will be sentenced Nov. 16. She could face up to six months in prison in addition to other fines and restitution.

There’s more at the original.

It might be complained that Miss Courtright is a convicted criminal now, but the Herald-Leader published the same photo on June 28th, before she was convicted of anything.

Miss Courtright is hardly the only one of the Capitol kerfufflers whose photo has been published by the Herald-Leader, even before they were convicted of anything. The newspaper had at least two articles on Lori Vinson, one of which was before she was even charged with any crimes, which featured her photos.

Both Miss Courtright and Mrs Vinson are facing maximum sentences of six months in jail; Mr Kelty is a multiply convicted felon looking at spending the rest of his miserable life in prison, but the Herald-Leader protected the photo of Mr Kelty. On March 3rd, the newspaper published a story which identified 12 Kentuckians by name, with photos of 10 of them — some difficult to identify — who were charged with crimes related to the demonstration, but at the time not convicted of anything.

The Herald-Leader also declined to publish the mugshots of two men sentenced to a year for their part in assaults during a Black Lives Matter protest in the city. Their crimes were more serious than any of the ones of which the Capitol kerfufflers were convicted.

Of course, the very liberal Herald-Leader probably sees the Capitol kerfuffle as a hideous and heinous crime, because that’s what the left do, when it was, in reality, little more than an out-of-control, disorganized frat party. The only shot fired was from a Capitol policeman, and even though a few firearms were recovered from a couple of the protesters’ vehicles, none were taken from protesters in the Capitol Building.

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Once again, the Lexington Herald-Leader hides a mugshot, this time of a convicted felon.

As we have previously noted, the Lexington Herald-Leader adheres to the McClatchy Mugshot Policy. The policy states as one of its reasons is the possibility that a criminal suspect might be acquitted or have the charges dropped, in which case publishing his mugshot would have a detrimental effect on him.

But what if the accused is already a convicted felon, one with “several prior felonies”? Why should he be shielded?

    New Lexington murder indictment was from an infant’s death in 2018. Bond set at $500k

    By Jeremy Chisenhall | August 27, 2021 | 4:41 PM

    Brent Dyer Kelty. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center. Click to enlarge.

    The Lexington man indicted by a grand jury this week is accused of killing an infant three years ago, according to court records.

    Brent Dyer Kelty, 30, has been charged with murder in the death of 4-month-old Landon Mayes, who suffered head trauma. Mayes died on Sept. 8, 2018. Kelty was indicted on Wednesday, according to court records.

    Lexington police investigated the death, but the attorney general’s office presented the case to a grand jury, resulting in Kelty’s indictment. A spokesperson for Attorney General Daniel Cameron said representatives couldn’t comment on why the indictment came three years after Mayes’ death.

    “We cannot share details regarding the investigation,” Elizabeth Kuhn said.

    Kelty was already in jail on unrelated charges, according to jail records. In addition to murder, he was also indicted on a count of being a persistent felony offender. Kelty had been convicted of several prior felonies in Fayette County since 2010, according to court records.

There’s more at the original, but I would think that a man, a previously convicted felon, who has now been indicted for killing an infant, would qualify as accused of committing what should be considered a “high profile crime”.

The First Street Journal does not hold to the policy of shielding such defendants, and their mugshots are matters of public record. If this guy is guilty of killing an infant, there ought to be exactly one sentence: lock him up and throw away the key.

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Lies, damned lies, and statistics If you have a good case to make, getting caught using skewed statistics doesn't help you make it

There it was, on the left hand side of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s website main page, a story about ‘breakthrough’ COVID-19 cases, which naturally got my attention.

    Fayette County vaccination rates inch up but so do breakthrough COVID cases

    By Beth Musgrave | August 24, 2021 | 5:52 PM

    Lexington’s vaccination rate for those over 18 has hit 70 percent as COVID breakthrough infections — typically far less serious — have increased in those immunized, health and city officials said Tuesday.

    Although 70 percent of those over 18 have been immunized, the overall vaccination rate, which includes those 12 to 17, is about 58.7 percent, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data as of Sunday.

OK, here’s the first statistical problem: the vaccines were not approved for use in patients 12 to 15 years of age until May 10, 2021, so of course the vaccination rate for minors is going to be lower . . . but the Herald-Leader doesn’t tell us that. The vaccines have still not been approved for use in patients under 12, though that is expected soon.

    The city also hit another more grim milestone this week — the number of coronavirus cases in Fayette County has now topped 40,000. In the past four weeks, the city has had more than 4,000 reported cases, with 486 of those new cases from Saturday through Monday, say city and health leaders who held a press conference Tuesday on COVID issues.

    Approximately 28 percent of all August cases have been in fully vaccinated people, according to health department data.

    “But that’s also because more people are getting vaccinated,” said health department spokesman Kevin Hall.

    Still, vaccinated people are much less likely to be hospitalized, Fayette County Health Department data shows.

    Since February, 88 percent of people hospitalized locally have been unvaccinated or only received a single dose of the vaccine. Of the 94 Lexington residents who are currently hospitalized, 79 percent are unvaccinated, Hall said.

And here we go again: “Since February, 88 percent of people hospitalized locally have been unvaccinated or only received a single dose of the vaccine.” The vaccines were not even available to people under 70, who were not health care workers, until March, and even then, supply shortages meant that people under 70 could not get the vaccines in March. Nor does this account for children under 12, who have never been approved for vaccination; including children under 12 further skews the statistics.

More, even the people who were able to receive their first dose in early March — I was not able to get my first dose until April Fool’s Day, due to shortages of the vaccine — could not have gotten the second dose until early April, and would not have been considered fully vaccinated, meaning 14 days after the second dose, until mid-April. Thus, any statistic like the one given us above, using percentages from before almost anyone could have received both doses, is going to be seriously skewed. We’ve noted this previously, when Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) and state Health Commissioner Steven Stack released a wholly misleading graphic on Twitter. I do not disagree with the Governor that people should get vaccinated; I just see these tweets as wholly dishonest. Of course, I see the Governor as totally dishonest on just about everything.

If the case for vaccination is a good one, and I believe it is, why do public officials use skewed, obviously skewed, data to try to make their case? When you are trying to sell people on something — and trying to persuade people to do something they’ve previously been reluctant to do definitely qualifies as selling — getting caught using misleading information sure doesn’t help your case.

Would you buy a used car from Andy Beshear?

Beth Musgrave, from her Herald-Leader biography.

I have previously stated that the Herald-Leader employs journolism[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term … Continue reading as much as journalism, and this is another example of it. According to her Herald-Leader biography blurb, Beth Musgrave, the article author,

    has covered government and politics for the Herald-Leader for more than a decade. A graduate of Northwestern University, she has worked as a reporter in Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois and Washington D.C.

If she has covered government and politics for over ten years, I have no doubt that she’s at least reasonably intelligent, and ought to be able to spot the bovine feces which comes from the mouths of government officials. She should not have missed how misleading the statistics presented were, and if she managed to miss it, Peter Baniak, the newspaper’s editor, should have caught it.

I understand: it is the Herald-Leader’s editorial policy to push vaccination and mask mandates, and I absolutely support people choosing to take the vaccine. More, the newspaper is, like medium sized newspapers everywhere, on shaky financial footing. But it takes little energy and few dollars to ask the questions which get statistics which are not biased, not misleading, and this the Herald-Leader does not do.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
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Does Lexington Herald-Leader columnist Linda Blackford actually read the Lexington Herald-Leader?

We get it: Lexington Herald-Leader columnist really, really, really doesn’t like Republicans. Given the newspaper’s record of political endorsements, and how out-of-touch they have been with Kentucky’s voters, Mrs Blackford’s political opinions are not exactly a surprise. Still, I would have thought that she’d read her own newspaper. After all, it isn’t even that big anymore! Continue reading →

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Coincidence? I wonder . . . .

On Wednesday, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Lextran had to scale back Lexington bus service on several routes due to a shortage of drivers:

    Jill Barnett, general manager of Lextran, said all public transit agencies, including transit agencies in Louisville and Northern Kentucky, are struggling to find enough drivers.

Further down, the article noted that all drivers and passengers must wear a face mask on the buses and inside waiting areas at the Downtown Transit Center.

And now we have this early morning story:

    Fayette school bus driver shortage cancels routes. Families asked to have a back up.

    By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | August 12, 2021 | 06:44 AM EDT

    After several bus drivers called in sick Thursday morning with the district already shorthanded, Fayette Superintendent Demetrus Liggins said he “took the extraordinary step” of canceling four bus routes.

    In a late-night message to families on the first day of school Wednesday, Liggins said the routes canceled were Bus 313 with service to Brenda Cowan Elementary School and service to Frederick Douglass High School, Bus 17 with service to Henry Clay High School and Bus 217 with service to Dixie Elementary School.

    “This is certainly not an ideal situation and we deeply apologize that we have had to inconvenience our families,” said Liggins, who is starting his first year.

There’s more at the original, but Mrs Spears noted that a shortage of bus drivers has been an “ongoing challenge” for the Fayette County public schools.

Neither story says, of course, that the mask mandate ordered by Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) might be having an impact, but it’s an obvious question: would you want to be a bus driver and face possibly being accosted by angry students and their parents over such. Given the very liberal unemployment eligibility and the government paying people not to work, why sign up to take such abuse?

Mrs Spears, of course, could not include such a point in her article, given that the Herald-Leader’s Editorial Board supported Mr Beshear on his mask mandate. Then again, as we have pointed out previously, the newspaper’s Editorial Board aren’t exactly in tune with the voters in the Commonwealth.

In their editorial, the Board wrote, “Gov. Andy Beshear may have just signed away his chance to win re-election . . . .” From their keyboard to God’s monitor screen!

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!

The Lexington Police Department apprehended a young man who stole a vehicle, and then, after the vehicle owners tracked down the car, shot one of the owners.

Oh, come on now, the paper could have given whatever low-level staffer wrote this a byline, anyway! It might be his first, something he can cut out, frame, and put on the wall!

    Javon McMullen. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center. Click to enlarge.

    Lexington police have arrested and charged a suspect who allegedly shot one of two brothers who were hunting for a stolen vehicle in the city late last month.

    Javon McMullen, 19, was arrested about 9:20 a.m. Wednesday in the 1600 block of Claywood Court, Sgt. Donnell Gordon said.

    McMullen is accused of shooting when confronted by a man who had located and followed his stolen vehicle, Gordon said. The shooting happened about 1:35 a.m. on July 26. Police previously said the victim had been accompanied by his brother.

    The 31-year-old victim’s injuries reportedly weren’t life-threatening. He was taken to University of Kentucky Hospital in a passenger car following the shooting, police said.

    The stolen vehicle had crashed in the area of Buckhorn and Alumni drives.

    Police said immediately after the shooting that they would advise against people trying to track down their stolen vehicles themselves.

There’s a bit more at the original. But while the Herald-Leader does not publish mugshots, The First Street Journal does. The suspect’s name, birthdate, height, weight and the charges are all public records.

Mr McMullen, if convicted, well, picture the stereotypical sheriff and his comical line, “You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!” Mr McMullen is charged with Assault, first degree, and Wanton Endangerment, first degree, along with leaving the scene of an accident and an automobile theft charge. Assault in the first degree is a Class B felony, punishable by no less than 10 and no more than 20 years in the state penitentiary, along with a fine of between $1,000 and $10,000. Wanton endangerment in the first degree is a Class D felony, which is punishable by between 1 and 5 years in prison.

There are potential sentence enhancements for persistent felons, but the Herald-Leader made no mention of that. Given that he is charged with shooting someone, but not charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, he may have no previous adult felony record, and if he has a juvenile record, that would almost certainly be sealed.

Of course, the greater probability is that his public defender and the Commonwealth Attorney will work out some kind of idiotic plea bargain, sentencing him to far less time in prison. 🙁

Rudy Giuliani showed New York City, and America, what can happen when criminals, even at the lowest levels, are treated seriously, and harshly: crime goes down. Now, with all of the ‘defund the police’ idiocy, crime is skyrocketing. If Mr McMullen is found guilty, he should be locked up for the maximum time allowable under the law. The problem isn’t, as the left claim, “mass incarceration,” but that not enough people are incarcerated, for not enough time.

We can’t know that, if Mr McMullen is convicted but treated leniently, that he will commit another crime or three during the time he could have been locked up under a maximum sentence, but we do know that, for as long as he is locked up, he won’t be committing crimes against law-abiding citizens in the Bluegrass State.

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Once again, the Lexington Herald-Leader hides a mugshot

We have often mentioned the McClatchy Mugshot Policy that the Lexington Herald-Leader is obligated to follow. Of course, the Herald-Leader did not publish the mugshot of the defendant in the following story, despite having published several recently, all of white criminal suspects.

    Massive bond set for man accused of killing Richmond couple. Not guilty plea entered

    By Rayleigh Deaton | August 9, 2021 | 11:58 AM EDT

    A $5 million bond has been set for the man charged with two counts of murder in the slayings of a well-known Richmond couple.

    At an arraignment Monday, a plea of not guilty was entered on behalf of Thomas Birl, 51, who is accused of killing Christopher and Gracie Hager. Birl was also charged with arson, evidence tampering and receiving stolen property.

    Birl allegedly shot and killed the Hagers outside of a duplex they owned in Richmond, according to police. Birl was staying with his girlfriend. After the shooting, Birl set the duplex on fire and jumped out of a bedroom window before being arrested, according to court records.

What does the sentence, “Birl was staying with his girlfriend,” mean? Does it mean that he was staying at the apartment building owned by the Hagers? Perhaps Miss Deaton will update the article to fix that.

This has been a story that the newspaper has been all over:

But, all over it or not, the newspaper declined to print the mugshot of the accused, even though it has been freely broadcast all over the area by the local media, by Channel 18, WLEX-TV, and Channel 27, WKYT-TV, among others. Of course, The First Street Journal, which believes in the public’s right to know, does publish mugshots; they are a matter of the public record.

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Is the Lexington Herald-Leader guilty of sheltering a criminal suspect?

As we have previously noted, the Lexington Herald-Leader is bound by the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, which states that McClatchy publications will not print photos of criminal suspects, unless certain conditions are met. One of the exceptions editors are supposed to consider — and all exceptions to the policy must be approved by an editor — is “Is there an urgent threat to the community?”

On Wednesday, July 28th, Lexington police officers, working with United States Marshals, attempted to arrest Mr Dockery at a home in the 1600 block of Thirlstane Court. The suspect allegedly shot at police, and at least one officer returned fire and wounded Mr Dockery. The Herald-Leader was all kinds of upset that the LPD would not release the names of either the suspect or the officer who shot him.

    Officials haven’t identified the Lexington police officer who fired his gun, nor have they identified the suspect who was shot. He was served with a murder warrant after being taken to a Lexington hospital, according to Lexington police. Police hadn’t yet confirmed who shot the man. It was unclear if U.S. Marshals also fired at him.

    Kentucky State Police are investigating the shooting and Lexington police told the Herald-Leader the release of any additional information would have to be approved by the state agency. Lexington police declined to answer several questions about the shooting during a press conference Wednesday after providing a news release.

The Kentucky State Police, rather than the Lexington Police Department, investigates all officer involved shootings. It would normally be considered a good thing that an agency not involved in the incident would do the investigations.

Well, for the Herald-Leader, which is reluctant to print the mugshots of even “armed and dangerous” criminals, not knowing which officer shot the suspect was just too, too much, so the newspaper kept investigating. At least so far, the officer has not been publicly identified.

    Documents divulge name of man injured in shooting involving Lexington police officer

    By Karla Ward | July 30, 2021 | 9:45 PM EDT

    Court documents provide a description of what police say led up to a shooting in which law enforcement officers injured a homicide suspect at a Lexington home Wednesday.

    The man who was shot is identified as Brandon Dockery, according to documents filed in Fayette District Court in a related case.

    Police said in the court documents that when they went to a home on the 1600 block of Thirlstane Court and made contact with Dockery at the front door, he kept “his hand in his pocket as if he had a weapon” and “continued to ignore officer’s commands.”

    Dockery can be heard saying “I don’t want to die,” on body camera footage, police said in the documents.

The article continues to note that the police initially used a stun gun to subdue Mr Dockery, and an exchange of gunfire followed when the taser apparently failed to incapacitate the suspect. A jammed handgun was found in Mr Dockery’s possession, which has investigators believing that the suspect shot at the arresting officers until it jammed on him.

While the Herald-Leader does not print mugshots of criminal suspects, The First Street Journal does, if we can obtain them. The mugshot of Mr Dockery is not from any Herald-Leader article, but from the Lexington Police Department’s homicide investigations page. I obtained this photo at the time of June 25th story, when Mr Dockery was still on the loose.

So, how did Karla Ward, the newspaper reporter, find out the name of the suspect shot, a name officials had declined to release prior to the completion of the investigation?

    Courtney Jade Brown. Screen capture from WKYT-TV.

    The information was included in a criminal complaint charging Courtney Jade Brown, 26, with first-degree hindering prosecution/apprehension in connection with Dockery’s apprehension. . . .

    The complaint against Brown states that officers and federal agents were doing surveillance at Brown’s residence on Thirlstane Court after learning that Dockery had been in contact with Brown recently and had been “staying there regularly since June.”

    When they saw Brown leave Wednesday morning, Lexington police immediately stopped her at the Speedway at New Circle and Meadow Lane.

    During an interview with a detective from the U.S. Marshal’s Service at the gas station, Brown said she didn’t know where Dockery was and lied when asked if he was at her home, the complaint states.

After interviewing Miss Brown, the LPD and US Marshalls went straight to her home, where Mr Dockery was found. Miss Brown was arrested, charged and released on Thursday.

Of course, the Herald-Leader did not choose to print Miss Brown’s photo either, even though my source for it, WKYT-TV is the newspaper’s ‘news partner,’ and the WKYT story was published at 4:38 PM EDT, three hours and 7 minutes prior to the Herald-Leader’s story. The Herald-Leader certainly had access to the photo.

Obvious question: if Miss Brown is guilty of sheltering Mr Dockery from the police, is the Herald-Leader guilty of the same thing? The residence in question is on a single family homes street, and if the Herald-Leader had published Mr Dockery’s mugshot, perhaps one of the neighbors might have seen it, recognized him, and reported it to the police. The police clearly suspected that Mr Dockery was at Miss Brown’s residence, as they were keeping the place under surveillance, but must not have had enough evidence he was there to execute a warrant there. Had a neighbor spotted the suspect, and reported it to the police, perhaps the warrant could have been executed weeks earlier.

Yes, I know: that would be a difficult case to make. But the McClatchy Mugshot Policy is clearly not helping law enforcement, or serving what so many media outlets have termed the “public’s right to know.” The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists states:

  • Responsibility: The public’s right to know of events of public importance and interest is the overriding mission of the mass media. The purpose of distributing news and enlightened opinion is to serve the general welfare.
  • Freedom of the Press: Freedom of the press is to be guarded as an inalienable right of people in a free society. It carries with it the freedom and the responsibility to discuss, question, and challenge actions and utterances of our government and of our public and private institutions. Journalists uphold the right to speak unpopular opinions and the privilege to agree with the majority.
  • Ethics: Journalists must be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know the truth. . . . . Journalists will seek news that serves the public interest, despite the obstacles. They will make constant efforts to assure that the public’s business is conducted in public and that public records are open to public inspection.

Can someone tell me how the McClatchy Mugshot Policy and the Lexington Herald-Leader’s adherence to it, even in the case of armed and dangerous suspects, serves the public’s right to know or the general welfare? How does it serve the public’s interest, despite the obstacles? Mr Dockery has been criminally charged with murder, the most serious crime there is, yet the Herald-Leader chose to withhold from the public information which could have led to his apprehension as much as a month earlier.

Perhaps the McClatchy newspapers have chosen instead to adhere to the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journolists.[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term … Continue reading

It’s simple: in their efforts not to “disproportionately harm people of color,”[2]Quote is actually from the Sacramento Bee, the lead McClatchy newspaper, and the first (as far as I know) to implement the no mugshot policy. the Herald-Leader is sacrificing the public’s right to know.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
↑2 Quote is actually from the Sacramento Bee, the lead McClatchy newspaper, and the first (as far as I know) to implement the no mugshot policy.